Permanent Complications
by crazycarby25
Summary: Unsuccessful attempts at avoiding each other cause Carter and Abby to have a dramatic confronation, but can anything become of the remnants of their feelings?


Part 1

This damn hospital is like a shrine dedicated to what he and I once had. Everything in here bears some significance. Like the couch I've been sleeping on. So many quick kisses, conversations with our hands entwined, times we almost had sex on the couch during our breaks...the time we did have sex on the couch during our breaks... I tense and push my face further into my impromptu pillow, my balled up lab coat, wishing these constant thoughts of him would cease to plague me. I hear the door swing open and listen to the footsteps- it's not Carter, as if I needed to rule that out, and that's all that matters. Someone punches my shoulder and I roll over, groaning, to face Susan, who looks as pleased as I am to be here. Nevertheless, the resident eternal optimist manages to come up with a smile.

"It's great to be in med school, isn't it?" she teases, smiling mockingly but with a hint of reminiscence in her voice. "You look tired." she observes brilliantly, sounding concerned. "Kind of delusional... how many hours of sleep did you get, anyway?"

"Hours?" I question, astonished. "It's been... umm..." I look at the clock, unable to keep it in focus long enough to read the time, then turn to her hopelessly.

"Forty-five minutes." she supplies, then asks with mock seriousness, "Ma'am? What's your name? Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened to you?"

"Abby... I think... the same damn hospital I woke up in this morning... yesterday morning", I correct myself, sitting up and able to focus on the clock, "and the only man I've ever given a damn about left me for more productive, functional, and important things in Africa. Work for you?"

Susan sighs and crosses the room to the coffee maker, pouring us each a cup and handing me mine. I gulp the warm, black liquid hastily, not caring that it's singeing my lips. I swear it tasted better when Carter poured it.

"Now may not be the time to tell you this... now's definitely not the time to tell you this" she verifies, obviously noticing that I'm entering one of my more cynical, depressive, angsty Carter reflection and analysis modes, "but I doubt there's any good time. He's back, Abby." she spits out, toying with her paper cup nervously as she awaits a dramatic reaction from me. "And..." she hesitates, my glare terrifying her for a moment, "he's not alone."

Part 2

There was only a certain point to which they could avoid it.

They had discovered twice that this place in which they were together was not that large- once when they were looking for any way to be alone together, and once when they were trying to stay apart for as long as possible. Neither would work out.

They watched each other carefully, believing that the other wasn't doing the same. They checked to see who else was working on a patient before attending to them, and took different breaks. Yet neither could stand to take different shifts- that way they couldn't monitor one another. So they played this insane game of hide-and-seek, though to them it was much more than child's play. It was a crazy game, a game that could drive each to the breaking point. It was dangerous... they were playing with their love- their hearts- and thus their minds.

And so it was inevitable that the unthinkable would happen- they would, of course, meet. It would be unexpected, a fatal slip in planning their separations, and it would drive them over the edge. Could it have been prevented? Could their sanity have been salvaged? And why was one crash into one another so horrible? From a superficial viewpoint, this meeting was nothing. It was a mere touch of skin against skin- an arm brushing another in haste.

But it was more than that. It was the deadly shock that ran up each arm as they met, the all-too familiar numbness felt in each limb. It was each arm's magnetic attraction to the other, seemingly holding their weak contact with incredible force, the stupefied muscles powerless against the incomprehensible attachment. It was the bewilderment that was apparent in each eye until those eyes met- and when they did, it was the look that shifted frantically and uncertainly from adoration, to hatred, to deep anxiety. It was the fireworks that accidently explode after the show has ended, that cause the people to turn around and wonder if they're up for another round. The sound of those fireworks, the stereotypical display of immense connection, now served as the beating of a war drum, or a bomb exploding in the distance. The indication that to save themselves, it was necessary to separate... but somehow knowing that if they did, the stubborn limbs would cease to function, having no source of oxygen, no external motivation to advance them. It was like suicide- regardless of what decision was made, a part of them would die.

Before either had a chance to consider stopping it, their arms were touching, and their eyes were locked. Could they have severed the connection? All intelligence was inferior to this inexplicable bond. Indeed, words would need to be exchanged to rectify the situation. But neither had the words to speak, and thus more time was spent adjoined. It grew deeper and more involved by the second, and thus became increasingly difficult to escape. Neither was sure who first came up with the idea of beginning with a pleasant greeting, but to the two, it seemed like a brilliant innovation, and like it could surely serve as an escape. "Hi." 

Bad idea. Who knew that something so meaningless, typically unattached, that this casual, thoughtless line could provoke such deep feelings? It sent them cascading further into the downward spiral that these unvoiced expressions provoked. And it was the stress of this conversation that stimulated him to draw back his arm in anger, and instantly regret it. The searing pains of separation shot up and down each arm, carrying to their hearts, and put them in shock. If they thought being in their former state, of togetherness and yet apartheid, was hard, this was ten times the torture. Looking at each other was like rubbing salt into a wound. It was open heart surgery with an unsterilized knife.

And it wasn't easily reparable, either. It wasn't as if things would work out for them so that they could touch again. Both were too stubborn to admit that that simple touch was what they craved. And silence filled the new space created between them, pulled them further apart, though they hadn't moved. Their mouths, eager to fill with words that would make the situation work to their advantage, that had hung slightly open, were now filled with this silence, and it choked them. It prevented any other words from forming, and then satiated them with feelings of regret, and missed opportunities.

Yet they couldn't put up with it being so, and so they used their feelings to propel them forward in conversation. They hadn't lost the tendency they had to do things in sync. In one fluid motion, their bodies fell to the couch, and they sat next to each other in a brief silence. It was the calm before the storm, the moment a diver takes to gather their thoughts before plunging into the water, not knowing what would happen before they went in, and not knowing if they'd come to the surface again. This talk was as necessary as food to them, but as dreaded as an excess of calories. Again in tandem, they began to speak.

"Carter-"

"Abby, I-"

There was momentary forced laughter, which did nothing to increase the morale, followed by each politely insisting the other go first. It was not so much a considerate gesture as a stall for time, an attempt to once again alter the inevitable.

Finally, it was Carter who spoke, which, like so many things in their recent shared history, they'd come to regret. In a grave tone, he told Abby that he had something to tell her.

"You're aware that I- well, I met someone while in the Congo."

Abby nodded, obviously upset. She was yet to come to grips with this.

"Of course you did- what woman could deny you without hating herself?" Carter caught this subtle hint, but chose not to comment. Each second he grew more distraught. That was nothing like a remark that Abby would make. He couldn't consider it, though, he had to forcefully continue the conversation. Things would be hard enough with all feelings aside.

"Well, today I found out that- we're- I'm- she's-"

A huge list of possible endings to the sentence ran through Abby's head in that instantaneous pause. Suffering from disease, going to die, not together anymore... they were quite varied. But Abby never considered, in that list, what he would say next. She would remain in shock for an insurmountable period of time later, be it hours or years, certain it was her pessimistic imagination attacking her, reluctant to believe that this could be.

"-pregnant." The word fell like a gunshot rushes towards it's target, slicing through the air deliberately and quickly, hurtling with sickening speed towards the unsuspecting victim. Each second it was in the air, before reaching the one not yet shattered, brought it more velocity, and thus it was more threatening, and death was more certain. There was no turning back once this verbal shot had been fired. It had the capability to bring life and to end it, to cause great joy and celebration or tears and inconceivable sadness.

And after the shot rang out, a silence fell. Even more so than the first, this silence would kill. It would rip the hearts of the injured, claim the souls of the fallen, and bear guilt on the shooter. In seconds nothing was the same, and yet the world around them remained torturously unchanged.

Abby had no idea where to turn. She refused to look at him. There was a time at which she would have considered sharing with him her sadness. The point at which she even considered doing so had taken incredible amounts of suffering of both parties to reach... but he had just been the very one to send her flying over the edge. Her only possible confidante had just put a steel-reinforced barrier between them, as if to prevent retaliation tactics. She glanced around the room frantically, her barely coherent thoughts scrambling with no apparent connection through her head. She saw Susan look in concernedly, then leave, knowing better than to step into the midst of a battlefield, even one that was temporarily silent. Abby wondered if Susan knew that her world had just ended. She desired to know how people could function normally, as if nothing had happened. She wanted to cry out, to tell everyone to fear this great heartbreaker, but he'd rendered her unable to utter a sound. And what she did next was worse than any literal pain she could have inflicted. 

A few moments passed, and with each, the state of their sanity rapidly deteriorated. She'd turned her face away, but he watched her intently as if reading the frantic thoughts troubling her mind, making her face change, her beautiful, glowing skin turn a deathly shade of white, and wrinkles cruelly accentuate her already tired and worried expression. Unthinking, he reached his arm out slowly, trembling, and lifted just a finger to her face, meeting her reddened cheek stiffened and dampened by tears, and muttered her name under his breath, almost inaudibly, but still full of sincerity and concern... lovingly. Abby snapped her head to the side immediately upon feeling this touch, flinging his cupped hand away with such force that it stung initially, emotionally and physically. "Don't-" she paused, inhaling sharply and meeting his gaze again, her intense brown eyes searing, burning his, "say my name like that." A brief pause, and she looked up, most of the anger from her first expression gone, and a new look of tenderness on her face, and continued, "or you'll make me fall in love with you again."

Then she turned her head away again, terrified to look at him, fearing what she may have just exposed. The vulnerability scared Abby beyond belief. She needed more answers, more certainty, and yet she felt she'd gotten enough information. They couldn't turn back now, had to keep pressing forward, as painful as it might have been.

She simply lifted her head, allowing his worried expression to meet her eyes, as she desperately attempted to hold back tears, which even in this emotional moment, she refused to utter. Then Abby asked quietly, astonishingly, and with stinging sincerity, "Why?"

Any way he could have chosen to answer the question, they both would have been hurt beyond belief. There was no sugar coating to this one, nothing either could do to protect themselves. They'd cut too deep into the flesh this time around- it would definitely leave a scar.

"I don't know." Stupid as it sounded, it was true. He'd felt attraction to Kem, perhaps, but it was nothing but animal desire for passion. If he thought there were feelings involved, he was horribly wrong, and there was no way to express this to her. She was right, as usual. Abby had always been Carter's conscience, the only reason he was ever given to question his decisions.

Prior to this remark, Abby was simply anguished. Now, however, with his careless attitude to this event, she was livid. She wanted to scream at him, but somehow she thought that would be the easier way out. So she just watched him, mournfully, with an unmistakable look of pain on her face that she knew would tear him apart. This was a savage game now, no protection. It was a challenge to the death, and she was determined to win.

"Abby..." Her words wouldn't support his this time, she wasn't about to provide him an easy way out. Carter would have to express this to her on his own. She didn't respond but to look at him expectantly, with intense concentration, still depressed, waiting for the dreaded answer she somewhat hoped wouldn't answer the question.

"How was I supposed to tell her? How do you inform the woman who is carrying your child that you didn't want to have children with her? That you didn't intend for it to be more than an insignificant game? Is it ethical to leave the woman you've impregnated when you've known all along you're in love with another?" 

Abby was startled by this. Love, while perhaps experienced by both, had not previously been expressed during the course of their relationship. Now wasn't the time for this... no, it was much too involved already. She silently willed Carter to stop... but he continued.

"Is there a right way to bring up the fact that every time you were with her, you were pretending it was someone else? That every time she was in your arms, you silently compared her to the one to whom those arms belonged around? That she was simply used to provide distraction from the haunting thoughts of separation from the other woman?"

This could have been expressed more deeply. He could have worded it better, could have made it more heartfelt... but he knew Abby would understand. Carter had been looking around the room while speaking, but he locked his eyes on hers before continuing.

"Abby, I love you, but I have to tell you that now, if I had a choice, I'd stop loving you. It's too complicated for us to love each other, yet so eternal. I can't stop loving you, and now I have to make some kind of choice, that either way, is wrong. I have to choose either a woman carrying my unborn child, or the one whom I truly love, who might not even love me back. It scares me to think that I'd leave Kem, so definite and stable, for you, so... but I would..."

He trailed off, for the use of words on this topic had been exhausted. And they stared at each other for a moment, unsure, terrified, knowing that this was not something that would ever go away. It was more crucial then any of the innumerable hardships they'd gone through before, and the fact that this experience was new petrified them.

Then, slowly, minimally, she opened her arms to him, and he dove into them. She buried her head in his chest and wrapped her arms around him as he clutched her tightly, rocking them back and forth. He shook with sadness and confusion, and though she held him, had readily accepted him, which was uncharacteristic in itself, he found himself wishing that for once, she'd cry. And he watched her through passion-filled eyes awash with evidence of his pain, as her intense brown eyes also began to water, and then a single tear spilled over. He gazed, astonished, as the tear rolled gracefully down her cheek, a perfectly shaped droplet, gathering speed, and fell, rushing through the air and coming to an abrupt halt upon meeting a spot on her scrub top he'd already dampened. Many more came after it, from both, the salty tears mixing to form a hurtful potion that burned their flesh each time it made contact. And the pair, their relationship constantly plagued by drama, bonded more in this moment then ever before, crying in each other's arms, expressing a love that stood dangerously close to being broken, but grew harmfully deeper each second.


End file.
